Rescue Me
by Kuro49
Summary: AU. Erik/Charles. Erik is a volunteer at Kids Help Line and Charles calls.
1. Burn

Honestly to goodness, I am sorry for butchering any and all x-men verses with this wtfuckery. Heck, I don't even watch the firefighting drama this fic's title is named after.

Warning: Besides the fact that I don't really what happened. Erik is a firefighter and Charles' house is on fire.

XXX

**Rescue Me**

_(Burn baby burn, this is for all the trouble you've caused.)**  
><strong>_

XXX

Charles Xavier has never lived on his own.

And for good reasons too.

His father has been a great nuclear scientist, working on top-secret experiments in some laboratory set up within official government buildings. He is rarely home but Charles doesn't mind, it just makes their time together extra special.

His mother has loved him a great deal also. Although, she is always just a little out of reach for him with those expensive red dresses and large pearl necklaces he can't put a finger on. Still, young Charles knows she loves him very much.

But he lives in a large mansion in the New York countryside and has tutors come in from the city to teach him lessons far beyond his years. There are always maids by the door and a chef in the kitchen.

He never needs to provide for himself.

Neither has he ever needed to live for himself.

(Yes, one can call him sheltered and another will call him spoiled. Charles Xavier isn't one to deny the obvious, he is all of those things and more, so _much_ more.)

Until his father dies, and his mother remarries a man Charles blames for his father's death, everything turns into a chemical explosion and nothing is left.

Well, maybe except for him.

000

It has been three months since he has graduated from school. And living from hotel to hotel and then crashing nights at a friend of a friend's place, he has finally found a home for himself.

But the sharp and shrill alarm piercing his ears might be a problem.

Charles is standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring.

Blue eyes widening as they see a pan and fire, like bright red flames that is burning up everything.

His eyes are a little teary, the air is a little smoky and he feels just a little faint already. But Charles is bred as an academic, hence the textbooks and papers still lying across the ground, not a survivor in any sense of the word.

Fumbling with the phone in his hand, he scrambles to remember the emergency number, the three-digit one that people are supposed to know in case of anything. Only to hear a flat dialling tone before remembering he has yet to register with a local phone company.

Charles swears inwardly, standing before a burning stove and it really does take a while before he remembers he owns a cell phone of all things. (Oh, the miracles of life itself.)

He enters the living room because that's the last place he remembers it to be. And although his memory has always been the only thing he can rely on, a little bit of panic slowly sets in.

But he does feel a little safer when he finally hits the call button, even though his kitchen may still be on fire.

"Hello, 911 emergency?"

"Uhh… my house is on fire."

It is a woman who picks up his call, she sounds like dry ice and Charles imagines her to be blonde, and well endowed to say the least. He lets out an awkward cough, at both the smoke and his thoughts.

"Are you alright, sir?"

"Yeah," he chokes on the smoke, actually, this time. "But my house is on fire."

"Can you get to somewhere safe?"

Charles looks around, sees smoke and fire and the doorway leading out of his living room.

"No."

He doesn't need to think, it is an automatic response, or so he has convinced himself. (It is all those chemical fires that have consumed his life before this, maybe it's time to start anew again.)

"Can you give me your location?"

"Ummm… well, you see," Charles takes a seat in an armchair in the corner of the room. "I just moved in here two days ago, I don't really know the street name or anything… say, can't you like GPS me or something?"

"Stay on the line sir, I'm working on that right now."

"…"

"…"

The silence doesn't unnerve him, rather, it soothes him, because it is like a connection no one else can make. He watches the smoke curl in from the kitchen and remembers the fried eggs he never got the chance to taste.

"…"

"Help is on the way, sir. By the way, you live on…"

But he is no longer listening, he is back at the study where a chess set lies between him and his father.

000

He doesn't know why he doesn't run, or at the very least, walk out of his apartment.

Even though there is a clutter of opened boxes filling the hallways, he is sure he can manage but Charles is sitting in his living room when someone in full-gear is barging through his front door.

There is smoke everywhere and he is curled up in an armchair a friend from college doesn't want, holding on to a cushion Raven has bought him last time she visited.

It doesn't take a valid mind, just one with common sense and the basic knowledge that if you stay in a burning building, you will ultimately die.

Charles glances at the doorway and waves, like a well-mannered child who can't take care of himself (and perhaps, in every sense of the word, he is still that same child who is not allowed to touch his mother's jewellery.)

"The name is Charles, Charles Xavier. Thanks for coming."

He coughs on the smoke as he stands up from the seat and it is probably the amount of carbon dioxide he has inhaled but his knees give out beneath him and he falls to the floor.

Only, there is none of that catch-me-as-I-fall.

"Ow."

His shoulder hits the rough carpets.

But there is still all of the pick-me-up-when-I-fall.

He wraps his arms around the firefighter who is gathering him up from the floor and the smoke has thickened considerably, Charles notices. Tightening his grip on the man that is holding him to his chest, he keeps talking like it is the only thing keeping him going.

It is the fire, he blames, that is setting him up for embarrassment rather.

"I would offer you tea… if my kitchen wasn't on fire…"

He doesn't know if the man can hear him through all that protective gear he is wearing but it's not like Charles really cares at this point.

"Or if I hadn't burned my kettle last night, _sir_."

He remembers dry ice and a woman's voice.

000

In less than refined terms, this house is the epitome of dry twigs.

There are cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other. Opened textbooks are sprawled across the floors, there are loose leaflets of papers left out on tables and every other available surfaces. Even the chess set at the corner of the room is made of wood.

In Erik Lehnsherr's eyes, this place deserves to be burnt to ashes, along with everything else. So yes, when asked, Erik will admit that he nearly throws the man in his arms right back into the fire.

Hence, he is more than surprised when the same man jogs up to him, from ambulance to fire truck, just to thank a man who had almost given in to murder or at least assisted suicide.

"Sorry for causing all this trouble."

He sounds like the same man from the fire but his eyes are startlingly blue and alive. There isn't a hint of the man, set immobile by himself, when he glances around at the fire truck, the ambulance and a dozen residents from his apartment complex.

Erik furrows his brows.

"You look like I shouldn't be apologizing to you."

And he may be coming off rude or disinterested but the other only seem to know how to smile sheepishly. Erik shakes his head and replies, flat and dead. "No, you shouldn't. You should be apologizing to everyone else."

He motions to their surroundings but neither breaks the eye contact they have held since Charles (yes, he remembers his name, it is the introductions in flaming homes that sticks) has first initiated this conversation.

"Still," he makes this much more than fact and words, "you saved me."

Erik narrows his eyes at the way Charles speaks: You saved me (even when you could've killed me.) He shifts the helmet in his hands and states, crossing the line between whatever they are and whatever they were.

"…You could've saved yourself."

He only replies because he is the first person to witness the sight of Charles, sitting alone in an armchair, hands in his lap, like a child waiting for his parents to come home.

"Maybe..."

Charles is smiling and something seems to shift.

"—Erik! Let's go!"

He snaps his head back at the sudden call of his name, co-workers aside, he has let this go too far. He needs control and focus, not surprises or, _him_.

"Sorry to keep you," his eyes crinkle into crescent moons and nothing is unpleasant at all. "I will find a way to thank you properly."

"No need," he takes a step back from the man in the dark blue cardigan and knows he can't start seeing him as someone more than another victim he has saved from a fiery death. "I was just doing my job."

He forces the words from his lips and it tastes much harsher. Even though they can meet in another time or a whole other spectrum of life, Erik knows, he will save him in return.

"And I am just doing mine's, a cup of coffee at a later time then?"

"I think," he sees Charles wait on his words but it is the way he calls Charles _Charles_ in his head that makes him give ways. Some things are better left unsaid. "You would prefer a cup of tea."

His smile blossoms into something more, something even the extent of fires don't reach.

"It's like you are reading my mind, Erik."

XXX Kuro

What is this I don't even. D: I thought: humor, crack, AUs. Not: emotions, traumatic pasts, mix-n'-match x-men verses.


	2. Call

Okay, so my brain has finally waved the white flag and a series it is! An AU-based _Rescue Me_ series that will be updated irregularly featuring Erik in various odd job positions that usually ends with him saving Charles... somehow. (And no, I haven't given it much thought...)

Background Info: KidsHelpPhone (in Canada) and ChildLine (in the UK) are volunteer-based anonymous counselling services aimed at minors for issues like but not limited to abuse, pregnancy, discrimination.

Note: The anon-help-service mentioned in this fic is completely self-created and does not in fact exist, at least not that I know of. By no means is this a correct representation of actual services similar to it. So don't question the authenticity, there is honestly none. D:

Warnings: Past trauma and tons of baggage. Volunteer!Erik and Survivor!Charles. Erik is a volunteer at Kids Help Line. Charles calls.

XXX

**Rescue Me**

_(I am not perfect but you can call this my brand of kindness.)_

XXX

Charles is incomplete.

Right after the accident, there has been a sharp pain and darkness that shrouds over him. And then when the narcotics finally hit and everything mellows into soft glows and blurry dreams, trauma begins.

An accident is an accident and he is both the fortunate and the unfortunate one.

His mother has been driving, his father has been in the passenger seat and then his vision blacks out when he hears skidding in his ears. A few months after that, he wakes up to white. Stark sheets and clean walls. They (nurses, he blinks and his eyes hurt, doctors, he swallows but his throat is dry, psychiatric specialists) tell him he is brave and strong and lucky and has woken up months, years, earlier than expectation.

They smile, he clenches his hands in the sheets and they prop him up as he finally finds his voice to ask for a familiar face.

And then they say paragraphs and paragraphs of words wrapped in cotton and make believe. It isn't until he looks up do they finally swallow all the sugar coated tries they want to stuff him full with.

"Your father was pronounced dead when he arrived."

"And my mother?"

"Suicide, two nights ago."

Maybe it hasn't been the best way to break the news to a child, but he can still breathe just fine. There are no hiccups choking up his airway nor are there trembling in his hands. There are only drops after drops of tears that roll off of his cheeks and stain the white sheets. That is the only indication he has heard every last word the doctors has told him.

Three minutes later, when the shock dims by a fraction, Charles F. Xavier, aged 10, learns that he won't ever walk again.

000

Her hair is a dark red and she is wearing skin-tight blue.

"… Raven?"

"Good to know you still recognize your hospital buddy for the past 6 years." She pulls off her oversized sunglasses and peeking out from the layers and layers of bandages, her eyes are gold.

He smiles.

Charles meets Raven Darkholme two weeks after he is transferred from the ICU to the children's ward for long-term care. Raven is a burn victim.

He doesn't ask for details but he has heard all the gossip and rumors that nurses tend to whisper when the children are sleeping in their hospital beds. Right outside the dark rooms, in the bright white hallways: it was Raven's mother who lit the match.

While Raven's father is the one who turned them both in, the one with the self-hatred and pity, and a mangled resemblance of what a shred of a human heart can produce.

Charles doesn't know whether Raven's mom and dad are still locked up for life or whether they have taken an easier way out, much like his own. Raven doesn't say and Charles is grateful when he finds her in the lonely playroom where no one wants to walk near the metal mass that is him in a wheelchair.

Now she is 14 and he is about to turn 17.

She still has therapy every week and he still has physiotherapy every other day in the hospital where they grew up with nurses and doctors in training, who are now doctors and full-fledge nurses. Some comes back, others don't. Still, they are painfully young.

But sometimes, like now, it's hard to remember that fact.

"Charles. I'm your only friend."

She doesn't say it as a criticism and he doesn't take it with contempt.

"Thank you for that."

He is genuinely happy and she is trying to reach out to give him a push.

"I love you." His heart doesn't skip, not because she is not society's perception of beautiful. But because she is his only connection of what family can be. "But I want you to step out of…" she struggles for an appropriate word, "your old life."

She is sitting beside him, on the chairs in front of the elevators where he is due for his physiotherapy in a couple of minutes.

"Are you abandoning me…?" The fear that suddenly surges at him nearly gives him a heart attack. But he should've known, he _should've_, and now he is going to die of loneliness because she has found a world bigger than what he can ever offer her— "No!"

The tears prick when she turns his head to look at her, white-bandaged hands cupping his cheeks.

There is something fiery in her eyes and he doesn't want to cry in her arms because he should be the one offering comfort and anything else she ever wants or needs. Her voice softens when she raises a hand to brush the tears that threaten to fall.

Raven shakes her head lightly and chastises him.

"Silly Charles. I just want you to find something outside of here. Outside of physiotherapy and reading horribly boring textbooks when you know the content through and through."

He swallows the lump in his throat and relief washes down all the fear and bitter emotions. But his voice is still quiet when he finally asks, like a little child anticipating scolding.

"What do you want me to do?"

And he genuinely doesn't know. Raven nearly tears up in the face of his innocence.

Her eyes glint when she fishes in her pockets (in that blue skin-suit) and he regrets his question almost as impulsive as it comes.

Raven holds up a card. Two lines and a single phone number in the back.

His eyes are round when he finally reads the black letters on the simple business card.

_Children's Help Line_

_If you are willing to talk, we are willing to listen._

"I'm not a child." He looks up at her, eyes still rimmed with pink. "And I don't need help."

"Charles." She presses the paper-thin card into his hand. "Try. For me."

He looks at her, sees the ring of blue around the gold contacts and sighs when he catches the tiny smile tugging at her lips. "But you owe me."

She grins and instead of that shy and bashful smile, her mouth stretches into a mysterious quirk of lips. "Oh, I might just think again, Charles." She gives a tap of her fingers against her temple.

And then she is standing up and slipping her black shades on over her eyes.

"Ask for Erik. And if he asks, tell him you are Mystique's X."

She crosses her fingers in the mock mannerism of the letter X.

000

"Kids Help Line."

"Oh, um, hello?"

He likes to talk but this is a stranger and it's different, and how is it really possibly that he is actually doing this? Charles bites down on his lips.

"This must be your first time?"

Charles opens his mouth, stammers some more and coughs with a nervous energy right into the phone. But the other line remains open and patient and a little too kind. And maybe he is thinking a little too much, thoughts running just a tad bit too wild but he is starting to feel the pity creep in. And really, he has had enough of that. "Uh… um, I was wondering if I could speak to… Erik?"

"Erik? …_Erik_?" There is a faint trace of surprise but also genuine warmth, like the surprise is pleasant and lovely and this is a miracle unfolding right before the… ears. "Hold just a second."

And then there is silence for a short tense moment that leaves Charles feeling stranded and without another breath of air in his lungs.

"Kids Help Line."

He almost chokes before he remembers to breathe out and his voice doesn't sound like him at all when he finally does speak up. "Are you… Erik?" Rather, it is tentative and unsure and border lining on suspicious.

"… Do I know you?"

"Um… I'm Mystique's… X?"

"…" The silence is unnerving and just when Charles is about to burst out with an apology and just simply cut the call, Erik speaks up. "Mystique?"

"Ra—Yes, Mystique."

"Do you prefer… X or something else?"

"Oh! My name is Charles Xavier, please, call me Charles."

"Erik."

"… Nice to meet you, Erik."

He doesn't actually realize but only when his cheeks begin to hurt does he recognize that he is smiling too wide. Charles tries to compose himself. He hasn't realized, not just yet, but this is happiness at its earliest stages.

And people, they always only ever evolve.

000

That is all it takes.

A step forward. A single meticulous step after years of feeling trapped and suffocated and the world is suddenly bigger and even a little brighter around the edges.

But of course, it takes years to undo the past damage.

Charles is almost 27 and Erik is 27 already. And it has been ten years.

X.

Yes. They can be standing fifty more years from now and they will still have all the same scars to show. (The experimental ones all across his back, the surgical markings at the base of his spine.) It is not perfect but it is what defines them into the men that these kids has held the blueprints for, all those years ago when hope is scarce and faith is lost.

Because even if the final knot is undone and smoothed out flat, there are still little imperfections and reminders that make the string dent and bend at strange angles.

But this makes them different and unique.

A one of a kind, one can call it.

Erik gets off the bus and makes his way inside the hospital. "I'm in the lobby." He says with a glance towards the elevator. The white that surrounds him is finally clean and pure, unlike all the days of fear and disinfectant and Doctor—the name of this man has brought bile before but that is _before_, before he hears Charles' voice over the phone and all else can finally be released from the pain and anger he has held so close to his heart. Even though this isn't the best, it is the closest thing to being forgiving that he can ever do—Shaw.

Particular.

"I'm coming right down." Charles says into the cell phone as he attempts to button his cardigan with one hand. He still can't feel his legs and his parents are still dead. But a little part of him has been lay to rest, six feet beneath the first layer of soil, because he is alive and Raven and Erik are too. "Ding—!"

The elevator pops open and Charles wheels himself in.

Perfect.

XXX Kuro

Charles' parents will continuously die in any and all universe. OTL


End file.
